


so many autumns

by elaphoi



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Amy & Eleven undertones sort of...if you squint, F/M, Gen, Rory-negative but in a fairly restrained way, but it's really about Amy, more speculative/meta stuff than dialogue driven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 22:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17455154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaphoi/pseuds/elaphoi
Summary: The Doctor had told you, once, there were countless different worlds–a vast and varied network of timelines, each branch just slightly distinct from the one before. Worlds, you think, like that false timestream of Melody’s making–the universe made different by one person, one moment in time; one choice, at once both small and monumental.In this world, Amy chooses differently. (ATM Rewrite)





	so many autumns

**Author's Note:**

> This is extremely self-indulgent, and was also written in one go at literally 5AM, so...the prose is weird and a little inarticulate, bear with me. Angels Take Manhattan rewrite where Amy makes a different choice. You can probably tell that I listened to Trenzalore/The Long Song/I Am Information (Reprise) and cried while I wrote this and you should too.

 

 

 

  

 

 

**"** I am tired. Too full of stuff I’ve done.  
Where my legs hurt, where my scalp hurts.  
I’ll not fight the thing inside me anymore.  
Let it eat me up. **"**  

_A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing_

_**Eimear McBride** _

 

 

 

 

The Doctor had told you, once, there were countless different worlds–a vast and varied network of timelines, each branch just _slightly_ distinct from the one before. Worlds, you think, like that false timestream of Melody’s making–the universe made different by one person, one moment in time; one choice, at once both small and monumental.

The Doctor had mentioned this fact almost absently, a pitstop within the landscape of broader conversation; you still remember, for the way your mind had seized so strongly on the notion. _What if–in some world–you finally stop running?_ _What if you_ do _settle–marry Rory in the white wedding dress dangling from its hook in Leadworth? What if you don’t? What if this strange, creeping emptiness only ever expands, until it eats and eats like the crack in your wall?_

You _had_ settled, long since, in the little London house with the door stained Tardis blue. Rory had seemed all the happier for it; you told yourself you felt the same–and you had, for the most part. It’s fortunate that Rory tends not to look beneath the surface of things; he might not like what he finds there. And so you salvage what little resentment you can, tucked away beneath the floorboards of your mind–buried there, like something illicit. Your anger, with time, collects a thin film of dust; for Rory’s sake, you make certain it never sees the light.

The truth, of course, is this: You never _have_ stopped running; you’ve only grown better at hiding it.

Somewhere, there is a version of you that looks at Rory Williams’ headstone and sees a future in it. You might imagine your name beside his, the letters etched in twining script: _Amelia Williams, Loving Wife–_ and maybe _Mother_ , too, though not to Melody Pond. Not ever again.

In this world, you are sure of yourself, as you never have been here. Is that Amy numb, like you are now? Does she choke on her anger–at the unfairness of it all; at herself, and the Doctor, and Rory, too? Does she doubt, this other Amy? Or does she love wholeheartedly, like a girl in a fairytale? You suppose, even then, it must hurt to slip between the cracks.

Or maybe it’s only like dreaming in sleep.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You _aren’t_ her, and so you _don’t_ know; you are far too preoccupied with trying to breathe, sharp gasps in through your nose. The Doctor seems to think better of touching you; his hand stills halfway to meet yours. You imagine how you must look to him now, little Amelia Pond made hard.

 _Good_ , you think, almost savagely; you can’t bear his kindness just yet. The Doctor knows you too well; you’re certain he would see right through you–to Rory; to the way your love of him has become so knotted up inside of you, you doubt you will ever really make sense of it. Worse, the Doctor will be grateful that _you_ are the one to survive; he has always loved you more. And you– _no_ , you can’t think about that now.

“Go,” you say instead. You try to make your voice cold; it betrays you, catching roughly in your throat. The Doctor hesitates, eyes pleading; you want to hit him, beat your fists against his chest, nearly as much as you want to fold into his arms–a child again, seeking absolution from a merciful god. It’s a story with an ending you know all too well. “I said _go_ , Doctor,” you snap, scrubbing at your tears with balled fists.   

He lingers at the door to the Tardis. “You will come, won’t you?” he says, hoarsely. “Amelia.” His eyes are red-rimmed, and you soften despite yourself.

“Yes,” you say swallowing. You owe him this much; he is so afraid.

But this, it seems, is enough to satisfy; you have already turned away when you hear the familiar click of the door behind you. It isn’t much like him, to trust you so readily with your own life–but then, maybe things are not the same between you as they were.

You are alone with Rory, now–with what remains of him. He had grown fond of recalling that he’d waited for _you_  once–two-thousand years, with no one for company but your body cradled in his lap. Would he realize you might have done the same, had you chosen differently? Or had he carried his love of you through to the end, untarnished by ugly truths? It seems very like Rory, you think, to cling stubbornly to his rose-colored version of your marriage; he would hate to think you were ever given cause to regret.

Of course, he hadn’t been _stupid_ , either; on some level, surely...he must always have known.

You rise on shaking legs, brushing dirt from your knees; still, you can’t help but linger, eyes fixed on the headstone that might have been yours. At the very least, you should say _something_ for this man, your husband–but you’re numb, and your head is swimming, and you cannot shake the thought of that distant Otherworld, where the body of a different Amy rests beneath the ground. Maybe their love was a different thing entirely. They understood one another, you think; she never itched for something he simply could not give.

You hope so, anyway. But then, there’s no way of truly knowing.

 

*** * ***

 

The Doctor waits for you, hunched low over the Tardis console. He looks up when you enter, feigning surprise–as if he hadn’t been waiting with ears perked for the sound of your key turning in its lock. He seems on the verge of a second apology (“I’m sorry, Amelia,” he had told you in the graveyard, “I’m so, so sorry”) but settles instead for coughing awkwardly into a cupped hand. It echoes strangely in the silence of the antechamber.

“I can take you home,” he says, “If, ah–if you’re ready.” _Home_ , he says, as if there is any such thing. You think of the little blue flat in London, how vast and how empty it will seem to you now; you think of your parents, too, no longer immortalized as mottled photographs framed on your nightstand–but no less foreign to you, despite their resurrection. You _are_ still running, of course; at least you know this now.

You lean against him without thinking–sheer habit, muscle memory. It would be so easy to sob with your head buried in his chest–for Rory; for what you were to each other and what, perhaps, you never should have been; and selfishly, for yourself, for the world finally at your fingertips, and the incomprehensible struggle it will take to make meaning of it all.

You don’t, though–not yet. “Idiot,” you say, the words muffled against him. “This _is_ home. What would I want to go somewhere else for?”

He presses a kiss to the crown of your head–hoping to hide his answering smile, forbidden to a man in mourning. “Amelia Pond,” he says–your name, like a revelation. You wonder if this is pointed, a reminder of the woman you will now never be; of Amelia Williams, who had loved easily or differently, and died in her old age.

 _Amelia Pond, like a name in a fairytale._ Did she ever grow to miss it?

You had.

The Doctor leans across the Tardis console, straining toward the lever. Strange, that a man who lies so freely should have a face like an open book; guilt and grief and relief in equal measure.

“Where to?” he asks. “Anywhere you want. Just say the word.” He doesn’t smile; the question is completely in earnest–all of time and space, a cosmic salve for your wound. The deserts of Indigo 3, or the fifth moon of Sinda Callesta; Abingdon six thousand years from now, or Kansas a hundred years back. That’s how it is for _him_ , of course. He forgets; he hopes you will too, for your own sake–and for his, just a little.

You blink hard, eyes stinging with sudden tears. When you laugh, the sound emerges wet and brittle. “You pick," you say. "Wherever, I don’t care, just–”

“Get me out of New York.”

 


End file.
